IPM West

Monday, July 30, 2018

This will be my final opportunity to write for the Western
IPM Center newsletter, at least as its director.

After what seems like two of the shortest years of my career,
I’ve taken a faculty job in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis. Next
month, I’ll shift my focus from pests in the American West to developing sustainable
agricultural systems globally.

Thinking about how other nations can achieve the kinds of
agricultural improvements that integrated pest management and other sustainable
ag innovations have brought to American agriculture, I’ve been thinking about
what makes the Western IPM Center work. What’s made the Center, and its IPM
partners, so successful over the years?

First, it’s because the Western IPM Center is a catalyst. It
creates long-lasting partnerships across state, territory and tribal borders
and supports talented, creative, passionate people who are tackling the West’s
pest problems. The grants we give and papers we publish and tools we create are
important, but it’s always people who get things done.

Second, the Western IPM Center is a champion for the vast,
diverse and incredible West. Our region has Alaska and Hawaii, Portland and
Phoenix. We don’t grow one or two crops, but hundreds. We promote Western pest-management
needs and explain how Western crops are grown. We evaluate what works and
highlight the great accomplishments so many are making in the West to fight
pests.

As a catalyst and champion, the Western IPM Center is promoting
smart, safe and sustainable pest management to protect the people, environment
and economy of the American West.

The challenges in developing agricultural systems are many
and varied, but the lessons of the Western IPM Center do apply: connect people
to catalyze change and champion their needs and efforts and accomplishments. I’m
bringing that to my new work.

Although I’m leaving the Center team, I’m not going far. IPM
and the people who practice it are important to me. Keep at it. Keep in touch.
Keep caring about people and our planet and making things better.

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Why: To
improve the dialogue about pests, pesticides and integrated pest management.

Who: The
California Department of Pesticide Regulation and the University of California
Statewide IPM Program, in a project known as Pests, Pesticides and IPM.

How:
Through a two-year series of workshops, focus groups and conversations leading
to an April 17 IPM Summit held for a packed house in Davis, California.

What’s
Next? Making it happen.

At the summit, the Pests, Pesticides and IPM team presented
recommendations and summit speakers shared ideas on how to move IPM forward to
an audience of more than 200.

“One things I was happy about was that pretty much everyone
accepted the idea that pests are part of the human experience and everyone has
to manage pests,” said Jim Farrar, director of UC IPM. “That’s a good shared
foundation. What we have to agree on as a society is how we manage pests.”

The recommendations from the project team were distilled from listening
sessions focused on pest management in landscapes, structures and agriculture, plus
workshops focused on policy and communications and technology and innovation.

“The recommendations were a synthesis of these meetings we held
all around the state,” Farrar said. “They’ll also be captured in a white paper
published later this summer.”

Here are the team’s recommendations, what it called pathways to
the next generation of IPM:

1)Re-invest in
IPM at every level: basic and applied research, extension, and education.

2)Increase
critical thinking and creative solutions about pests and pesticides by using best practices,
such as systems thinking, that engage diverse stakeholders in local and
regional innovation collaborations.

3)Make it
easier for individuals, businesses, farms, agencies and organizations to choose
integrated approaches to managing pests and pesticides:

a)Drive the
demand for IPM through synergistic partnerships with industry, commodity,
community, educational, research, and government organizations.

b)More effectively
partner with
pest management
professionals and practitioners to become trusted advocates for effective IPM.

c)Partner with
the retail industry to improve resources available to consumers about selection
of reduced risk pest
management solutions.

d)Be creative
in engaging community organizations, homeowner associations, and other
non-traditional partners, particularly those groups that are trusted by
California's diverse communities, to increase their capacity for representation
and engagement in IPM.

e)Create
incentives for IPM that focus on reduced-risk pest management, resource
conservation, sustainability, communication, and use of social sciences to
increase adoption of IPM.

4)Bring new pest management
tools, practices,
and technology, including reduced-risk active ingredients, to market
more quickly by
reducing regulatory hurdles, particularly for biopesticides.

5)Take
advantage of the front-line knowledge and role of field workers and municipal
applicators to improve early detection of pests, recommend lower risk approaches,
safe practices in the workplace and at home, and to effectively interact with
the public.

The project ends in September, but Farrar is hopeful that
the conversation will continue and focus on ways to move the recommendations
forward to help make IPM the way everyone manages pests.

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

As the regional coordinator of the specialty crop pesticide
program known as IR-4, or the director of the Western Pesticide Impact
Assessment Program, or the founding director of the Western Integrated Pest
Management Center, Rick met with, worked with, ran with and influenced a lot of
people.

Here a few voices from that chorus.

“My memory of Rick was that he was very practical,” said
Carrie Koplinka-Loehr, who was a co-director and director of the Northeastern
IPM Center while Rick led the Western Center. “He was very level-headed. He
knew an lot about pesticides and pesticide safety and was able to use that
knowledge.”

Rick chaired the Regional IPM Centers joint meetings shortly
after Carrie joined the group, and she learned from his leadership.

“He was one of the people who shaped my early experiences
and expectations about the job,” she said. “I was grateful to him for providing
a role model for me.”

Rick was an avid runner, and fast. Idaho’s Ronda Hirnyck,
who worked with Rick for years in IR-4 or other programs, remembers getting
dropped by Rick on an early morning run in New Orleans and yelling for him to
stay in sight.

“We’d start out tighter on runs, but never finish together.”

Rick was frugal with taxpayer funds and didn’t spend them
easily. He was networked throughout the West and nationally, and able to
advocate for Western needs and priorities.

“He’d take care of other people,” Jim said. “He was strong.
You could count on him to try to move past difficult things and get people to
try to move forward together. If there were 300 million people like Rick in
this country, we would be a lot better off."

Rick brought binoculars on trips and a list of birds he
hadn’t seen in the wild.

While serving as director of the Western IPM Center, he also
ran California’s Office of Pesticide Information and Coordination. Lisa Blecker
took over that portion of Rick’s responsibilities when he retired in 2012.

“He never seemed stressed or frazzled,” she said. “I have no
idea how he did that. He was always calm and collected, just getting it all
done without making a fuss about anything. He was so even tempered.”

Rick had opinions and would advocate for them, but would
also change his mind when presented with a better idea. He believed in
science-based solutions. People remember that.

The Western IPM Center supports the development, adoption and evaluation of integrated pest management to benefit the people, environment and economy of the West. From our headquarters in Davis, California, we serve 13 Western states and the Pacific Island territories.